Appreciation of Zhang Jing's Prose "Sunflower Dust Fragrance"

My mother likes to grow sunflowers, and I have had this hobby since I was young.

As far as I can remember, my father always made trouble for several years. First, the sheller in the village swallowed two fingers of his right hand in half. After the wound healed, the father was indispensable for the work with more work points in the production team. For a time, my father could only do some light chores in the vegetable fields in the village. He seldom works, and his family gets less food. He eats steamed buns with white flour, and only guests from home can mix a few mouthfuls. This is really a rare enjoyment.

The next summer, my father coughed and had a fever for no reason. After two days, he didn't get better either. He was called by his mother to the medical station of the brigade. Doctor at the medical station, my name is Grandpa Eight, but I'm not old, just a senior. He looked at his father, flushed and panting, with a small red spot on his body. He touched the back of his ear, then opened his upper and lower eyelids and said bluntly, hurry to the county hospital. It's probably hemorrhagic fever If you go late, it will be too late.

Mother was frightened and ran to the village Committee. The village chief quickly asked grandpa four in the feeding room to take his father to the county hospital in a carriage. Because the rescue was timely and my father didn't use cold medicine indiscriminately, he finally saved the day. On the day I left the hospital, my first sight of my father turned out to be skinny, and it was easy to make people think that as long as there was wind, he could be blown down.

After this serious illness, my father was too weak. For a long time, he could do nothing but support himself at home. At home, in other places, inside and outside, I rely on my mother to support me.

The burden of life falls on my mother, who supports it like a man. That summer, I thought I should complain about the biting summer, the burning sun and the miserable days, but I couldn't see pessimism and sadness in my mother's face. Like the cows and mules in the village, she is full of endless energy. After finishing the work in the field, she went to the brick factory in the ditch to pull bricks. Many times, I sit on the cross sill at the door, watching birds fly and sing in the early morning mist, and listening to cicadas singing tirelessly on the branches of tung trees, one after another. At dusk, on the village road, the old cow came back with a sledge, and the dumb uncle came back with a full sheep, but his mother never came back. Until the night falls completely, there are only a few lights that are obviously extinguished. My mother was gray and tired and came back late.

After a few months, my father's health improved day by day. Mother is still busy, always with a soft smile on her face, like a sunflower flower, always facing the sun. From time to time, she would grab some Chinese medicine to recuperate her father's body, or pull a few feet of flower cloth to sew a flower dress for my sister and me and make a pair of flower shoes. In the hard days, there are also rare laughter in the small yard.

One day, among the stars, my mother came back from the brick factory. As soon as I entered the door, my expression was both excited and mysterious. My sister thought my mother bought us fruit candy and danced. But she took out a handful of melon seeds from her coat pocket and wrapped them in plastic bags under the kang mat, warning us not to steal them. When we plant in the yard next year, we can eat more melon seeds!

In late spring, it drips. In the corner of the front yard, mother sorted out a large clearing, dug a small pit, scattered three or two sunflower seeds, covered it with soil and watered it with clear water. In three to five days, the buds emerged from the soil, first one, then two, three ... a string of wind and rain, leaves increased one by one, and the thin branches of sunflower grew inch by inch. Mother came back from the field, sat on the ridge with soft sunshine and looked at the bright green sunflower covered with golden light. She muttered that there were melon seeds to eat this year, and then.

In the mother's view, sunflower is a flower with joy, and it is the hope and dream in her heart. My mother is a country woman, and her hopes and dreams are nothing more than a family with food and clothing and a sweet and rich life. I didn't know this at the time. I only saw the arrival of midsummer. Rows of thick sunflower stalks are scattered in the small courtyard in summer. Golden sunflowers hold their necks high and bloom warmly against the sun, blue sky and white clouds. The dazzling yellow charmed the ancient and ancient courtyard.

Later, I watched Van Gogh's Sunflowers. In this painting, a big golden sunflower blooms like a burning flame in the sun. Van Gogh said that it was the strongest light of love, which injected the last warmth into his depressed heart during his depressed days. But my mother doesn't know van Gogh. She only likes to grow sunflowers. Especially in the years of lack of food and clothing, the lush sunflowers on the wall drove away the heavy hardships wrapped around the mother. Every time I come back from the field, my mother always stays in front of the sunflower for a while, loosening the soil, pulling the grass, or holding a branch blown by the wind with her hands, full of love and joy. That bright and warm color gave her endless enthusiasm and strength, and let her unload her heavy body and go through hardships to become bright and sonorous.

It is sultry in July, and the heat is unbearable. After fertilizing, weeding and watering the crops in the field, my mother should have a relatively leisure time, but she is still very busy. She had to take advantage of the gap that crops were growing wildly and didn't need to be taken care of, and began to live at home. My mother needs to do a lot of work. My father has worn out a coat with cuffs and my brother's ankle-short pants. My sister and I have already brought back the new pants that I dreamed of wearing after school started, but my mother ignored it ... In that year, I saw with my own eyes that my mother was sitting in front of the sewing machine, with her head down and eyebrows down, working intently. She pedaled skillfully, pressed the thread, picked the needle, locked the buckle and sewed the button, and was very busy. After finishing sewing, we began to make family shoes. Needless to say, the moment we put on New Pants's new shoes, our joy and mother's smile became the most unforgettable scene in the small courtyard.

Unconsciously, the cool autumn arrived and the sunflower began to seed. Full seeds, crowded together. When the sun is shining, sunflower seeds will soon change from shriveled and thin to full and splitting. Mother happily cut them down and took them to the county to sell. In order to avoid paying the booth fee, my mother walked around shouting to sell, and all of them were sold. Then I bought new stationery and schoolbags for my sister and me, nutrition for my father, and went in to buy eggs and meat by the farmer's market. In those days, the family got together, happy and colorful.

Mother didn't sell the last sunflower when it was taken home. She spread a mat in the yard, peeled off sunflower seeds one by one and picked them up to dry. In the sun, the scent of sunflower repeatedly touches our taste buds, especially my two-year-old brother, who pesters his mother to eat fried sunflower seeds. Mother touched her brother's head and said, silly son, in fact, sunflower seeds should be completely dried. In a few days, the pulp and seeds will be delicious after being oiled and fried. Wait, they will be eaten sooner or later. My brother obeyed, grabbed it and went out to play with his friends.

Soon, winter came. In the old countryside, this season is difficult and sad for the poor. A winter's food needs to be stored and a winter's clothes need to be added. How can a mother not know? Like all poor families, she will try her best to keep our bones from being wronged in the cold and frost. For example, my mother always plants a crop of cotton on the sunny slope every two years, weeding, fertilizing, killing insects, pruning and breaking buds. So we three sisters always have brand-new cotton-padded clothes, trousers, socks, gloves and scarves in winter. So that we can safely resist the biting cold wind and the heavy snow all over the sky. However, in the long winter night, the most unforgettable and warmest thing is to sit on the hot kang with my mother and eat her fried sunflower seeds. Mom's sunflower seeds are fried very carefully. She poured sunflower seeds into the pot and gently fried them with wheat straw for a long time, which was estimated to be seven minutes cooked. She began to mix the salt water with cinnamon, pepper, aniseed and other spices, and sprinkled them evenly into the pot. While burning, she stirred them with a small broom until the fragrance of sunflowers spread in the room. We gathered around our mother, eating melon seeds, telling jokes and stories, and the days passed by in front of the window under a light.

Late at night, a cool breeze came in through the crack of the door. Mother got up, got off the kang, removed the door of the kang and added half a cage of broken wheat straw. She got on the kang and her eyes rested on the small sieve woven with thin bamboo strips. Sunflower seeds are stacked one after another, and they are close, just like her mother's delicate and complicated days, only to hear her say to herself: Next year, let's plant sunflowers again!